code by Draco (q.v.), which was followed by the more detailed and permanent code of Solon (c. 594 B.C.), who further threw open the highest offices to any citizen possessed of a certain amount of landed property (see Solon), thus putting the claims of the Eupatridae to political influence on a level with those of the wealthier citizens of all classes. The most highly coveted office at this time was not that of Βασιλεύς, which, like that of the rex sacrorum in Rome, had been stripped of all save its religious authority, but that of the Archon; soon after the legislation of Solon repeated struggles for this office between the Eupatridae and leading members of the other two classes resulted in a temporary change. Ten archons[1] were appointed, five of whom were to be Eupatridae, three Agroeci (i.e. Geomori), and two Demiurgi (Arist. Ath. Pol. xiii. 2). This arrangement, though short-lived, is significant of the decay of the political influence of the Eupatridae, and it is not likely that they recovered, even in practice, any real control of the government. By the middle of the 6th century the political influence of birth was at an end.
The name Eupatridae survived in historical times, but the Eupatridae were then excluded from the cult of the “Semnae” at Athens, and also held the hereditary office of “expounder of the law” (ἐξηγητής) in connexion with purification from the guilt of murder. The combination of these two characteristics suggests some connexion with the legend of Orestes. Again, Isocrates (xvi. 25) says of Alcibiades that his grandfather was a Eupatrid and his grandmother an Alcmaeonid, which suggests that in the 5th century the Eupatrids were a single clan, like the Alcmaeonids, and that the name had acquired a new signification. A pursuit of these two suggestions has established the probability that this “Eupatrid” clan traced its origin to Orestes, and derived its name from the hero, who was above all a benefactor of his father. The word will well bear this sense in the two passages in which Sophocles (Electra, 162, 859) applies it to Orestes; and it is likely enough that after the disappearance of the old Eupatridae as a political corporation, the name was adopted in a different sense, but not without a claim to the distinction inherent in the older sense, by one of the oldest of the clans.
Bibliography.—G. Busolt, Die griechischen Staats- und Rechts-altertümer (Müller, Handbuch der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft, iv. I), pp. 127 et seq., 155 et seq., 248 (Munich, 1892); G. Gilbert, Greek Constitutional Antiquities, p. 101 et seq. (Eng. trans., London, 1895); for Eupatridae in historical times, J. Töpffer, Attische Genealogie, p. 175 et seq. (Berlin, 1889). See also the articles Areopagus, Archon. (A. M. Cl.)
EUPEN (Fr. Néau), a town of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine
province, in a beautiful valley at the confluence of the Helle and
Vesdre, 9 m. S. of Aix-la-Chapelle by rail. Pop. (1905) 14,297.
It is a flourishing commercial place, and besides cloth and
buckskin mills it has net and glove manufactories, soapworks,
dyeworks, tanneries and breweries, and also carries on a considerable
trade in cattle and dairy produce. It has a Protestant
and four Roman Catholic churches, a Franciscan monastery, a
progymnasium, an orphanage, a hospital, and a chamber of
commerce. As part of the duchy of Limburg, Eupen was under
the government of Austria until the peace of Lunéville in 1801,
when it passed to France. In 1814 it came into the possession
of Prussia.
EUPHEMISM (from Gr. εὔφημος, having a sound of good
omen; εὖ, well, and φήμη, sound or voice), a figure of speech
in which an unpleasant or coarse phrase is replaced by a softer
or less offensive expression. A euphemism has sometimes a
metaphorical sense, as in the substitution of the word “sleep”
for “death.”
EUPHONIUM (Fr. baryton; Ger. Tenor Tube), a modern brass wind instrument, known in military bands as euphonium
and in the orchestra as tuba. The euphonium consists of a brass
tube with a conical bore of wide calibre ending in a wide-mouthed
bell; it is played by means of a cup-shaped mouthpiece. The
sound is produced as in the bombardon, which is the bass of the
euphonium, by the varied tension of the lips across the mouthpiece,
whereby the natural open notes or harmonics, consisting
of the series here shown, are obtained.
 |
The intervening notes of the chromatic scale are obtained by means of valves or pistons usually four in number, which by opening a passage into additional lengths of tubing lower the pitch one, half, one-and-a-half, two-and-a-half tones (see Bombardon; Tuba; Valves). The euphonium gives out the fundamental, or first note of the harmonic series, readily, but no harmonic above the eighth. Euphoniums are made in C and in B♭, the latter being more generally used. By means of all the valves used at once, the B♭, an octave below the fundamental, can be reached, giving a compass of four octaves, with chromatic intervals. The bass clef is used in notation. The euphonium is treated by French and German composers as a transposing instrument; in England the real notes are usually written, except when the treble clef is used. The quality of tone is rich and full, harmonizing well with that of the trombone. The euphonium speaks readily in the lower register, but slowly, of course, owing to the long dip of the pistons. Messrs Rudall Carte have removed this difficulty by their patent short action pistons, which have but half the dip of the old pistons. On these instruments it is easy to execute rapid passages.
The euphonium is frequently said to be a saxhorn, corresponding to the baryton member of that family, but the statement is misleading. The bombardon and euphonium, like the saxhorns, are the outcome of the application of valves to the bugle family, but there is a radical difference in construction; the tubas (bombardon and euphonium) have a conical bore of sufficiently wide calibre to allow of the production of the fundamental harmonic, which is absent in the saxhorns. The Germans classify brass wind instruments as whole and half [2] according to whether, having the wide bore of the bugle, the whole length of the tube is available and gives the fundamental proper to an organ pipe of the same length or whether by reason of the narrow bore in proportion to the length, only half the length of the instrument is of practical utility, the harmonic series beginning with the second harmonic. (See Bombardon.) (K. S.)
EUPHORBIA, in botany, a large genus of plants from which the order Euphorbiaceae takes its name. It includes more
than 600 species and is of almost world-wide distribution. It
is represented in Britain by the spurges—small, generally
smooth, herbaceous plants with simple leaves and inconspicuous
flowers arranged in small cup-like heads (cyathia). The cyathium
is a characteristic feature of the genus, and consists of a number
of male flowers, each reduced to a single stamen, surrounding
a central female flower which consists only of a stalked pistil;
the group of flowers is enveloped in a cup formed by the union
of four or five bracts, the upper part of which bears thick, conspicuous,
gland-like structures, which in exotic species are often
brilliantly coloured, giving the cyathium the appearance of a
single flower. Another characteristic is the presence of a milky
juice, or latex, in the tissues of the plant. In one section of the
genus the plants resemble cacti, having a thick succulent stem
and branches with the leaves either very small or completely
reduced to a small wart-like excrescence, with which is generally
associated a tuft of spines (a reduced shoot). These occur in the
warmer parts of the world as a type of dry country or desert
vegetation. The only species of note are E. fulgens and E.
jacquiniaeflora, for the warm greenhouse; E. Cyparissias (the
Cypress spurge), E. Wulfeni, E. Lathyris and E. Myrsinites, for
the open air.
EUPHORBIACEAE, in botany, a large natural order of flowering plants, containing more than 220 genera with about
- ↑ For a discussion of this see Archon.
- ↑ See Dr Schafhäutl’s article on “Musical Instruments” in sect. iv. of Bericht der Beurtheilungs- Commission bei der Allg. deutschen Industrie Ausstellung (Munich, 1854), pp. 169–170; also Fried. Zamminer, Die Musik und die Musikinstrumente in ihrer Beziehung zu den Gesetzen der Akustik (Giessen, 1855).
